Introduction: Edible Alterities, Perspectives from La Francophonie

This special issue of Portal contains papers that investigate the ways in which food and food cultures have created but have also disrupted links between different parts of the Fancophone world and between Francophone culture and other societies. Long considered a cornerstone of what is “French”, food and food culture in French speaking societies outside of France (and outside of many of the major centres of French cuisine within France) have been eclipsed by the dominance of the French culinary tradition. This volume uses examinations of literature, festivals, daily practices, languages and diaries to explore how Francophone cultures outside of France have not only positioned themselves relative to the dominant models of French food culture, but have used local produce and practices to question the fundamental assumptions and conventions concerning food in Francophone societies and in broader transnational contexts

Chaotic Topography in Contemporary French and Francophone Literature

Chaos theory proposed by Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers illuminates new conclusions about narrative structures in contemporary French and Francophone literature. Espousing an order-out-of-chaos paradigm, my tutor texts by Annie Ernaux, Frankétienne, and Jean-Philippe Toussaint demonstrate how the contemporary notions of identity, gender and genre are innately chaotic but simultaneously offer innovative insights into how these entities are being (re)conceived and (re)presented. Scientific, philosophical, and cultural models of chaos described by Prigogine, Deleuze and Glissant respectively, offer a means to understand the world in order to frame a contemporary cultural topography. Liberated limits of the novel, poetry, and diary genre, viewed through the concept of chaotic "noise", represent richness of information rather than a dearth in order. With Prigogine's Arrow of Time, identity is found in the future not in the past suggesting a non-linear development that is plagued with uncertainty but possibilities. Consequently, identity in contemporary literature is located in others and not in the self challenging traditional notions of this concept. Bifurcation points serve as nodes of "textual instability" revealing themes and trends questioning the function of language, identity and generic transitions in contemporary literature. Through the concept of strange attractors, women, men, language and places within these chaotic tutor texts serve as points of order to which chaotic narratives consistently return advocating the creative force of non-gendered chaos. Accordingly not only can the notion of identity, love and language be viewed as fractal within their own textual space, but the texts themselves transcend generic boundaries. Finally, the contemporary cultural topography is expanding to include electronic literature as an area of critical study. Due to the medium of transmission, i.e., the computer code, electronic literature presents chaotic form and content and challenges traditional notions of `reading' a text. Consequently, the reader interacts with the computer code causing the `narrative' to bifurcate resulting in multiple, unpredictable reading experiences. Chaos theory thus offers a pertinent tool through which to read and interpret this genre. Electronic literature's literariness, viewed through chaos theory, is defined as what changes instead of what remains constant

Authors and the Meta-Literary: The Politics of Publication in Contemporary Francophone Literature

Literature written in the French language has often been divided into a hierarchical dichotomy valuing French literature (written by metropolitan French authors) over Francophone literature (other writers writing in French). Under the influence of postcolonial studies and of the works of Francophone writers themselves, this hierarchical dichotomy has gradually been deconstructed. Traces of the French colonial history that triggered this dichotomy linger, however. The codes, constraints and conventions of the French literary system influence and weigh upon global Francophone works published in this system. My dissertation focuses on how the history of French colonialism still manifests in contemporary Francophone texts from the Caribbean, North and sub-Saharan Africa, and how Francophone authors resist the ensuing conventions. This dissertation thus considers contemporary works by transnational authors published in metropolitan France by major publishing houses such as Gallimard, Grasset or Le Seuil. Their texts engage and resist the national structures embedded in the way they are published, framed, distributed, and read. I identify three strategies that Francophone writers deploy to challenge the persisting colonial structures of the French literary system: they showcase contemporary colonial power dynamics in the stories they write, they challenge the genre of the novel that is intrinsically tied to the nation state; and they metamorphose the so-called standard French language, simultaneously also challenging the monolingual status quo tied to nationalism. Ultimately, this dissertation strives to add to the literary and academic conversation in the field of Francophone literature, to consider both the conceptualization work authors do, and the haling and political influence of French publication houses

Francophone identity and sense of belonging towards a linguistic community in Indonesian speakers of French

This thesis investigates the F/francophone identity and sense of belonging to the F/francophone community in French speakers with L1 Indonesian. The linguistic identity of speakers of Indonesian background has largely been under-researched, much less in the context of F/francophonie or the F/francophone community. Qualitative data collection methods (semi-structured interviews, solicited semi-structured diary entries and focus group discussion) were used in a semi-longitudinal study involving six French speakers with L1 Indonesian, three located in Indonesia and three located in France. This study aimed to discover whether the participants consider themselves F/francophones, whether they feel a sense of belonging to the F/francophone community as a whole and whether there is a difference between participants located in Indonesia and participants located in France. Findings show that participants only connect to the notion of F/francophonie in the linguistic dimension and identify more with the idea of ‘a community of French speakers’ than F/francophonie. Results of this study carry implications for the use of the term ‘F/francophonie’ and ‘F/francophones’ in the scientific literature, as well as implications for French language teaching in Indonesia

Introduction to Forum: The Hemispheric French Atlantic

“The Hemispheric French Atlantic” begins to suture a transatlantic to a hemispheric spatiality by tracing out the movement of texts, figures, and traditions within a complex and kinetic circulatory system that moves beyond the geometric model imagined by studies of the French Atlantic triangle. In tracking the discourses of politics, literature, and anthropology through a hemispheric French Atlantic space complicated by race and slavery, these five literary critical essays focus on the legacies of violence and promise that radiate through time and space from the Haitian revolutionary moment, spiraling across and beyond the long nineteenth century while circling across and around the wider Atlantic world. The forum insists on the inclusion of an extensive and under-studied archive of Francophone texts in our literary histories of the period and field, while also suggesting the need for greater flexibility in constructing the narratives through which we study literature, culture, and politics. They call especially for greater study and interrogation of the role of translation—not just between languages but between geographical locations and political orientations—in the post-revolutionary nineteenth century

East and West: Two Decades of Scholarship on the Medieval Francophone Periphery

This article is essentially a survey of scholarship on French literature in Italy and Franco-Italian literature between ca. 2000 and 2020, with an introduction which attempts to situate recent contributions within the history of the discipline as a whole. Brief reference is made to scholarship on modern Francophone literature and a more extensive comparison with that on Anglo-Norman or “Insular French”. Franco-Italian literature can best be seen as an integral but distinctive part of medieval literature in the langue d’oïl

Eksplorasi teks sastra frankofon dalam pengajaran bahasa Prancis sebagai bahasa asing di Indonesia

The term francophone refers to the French-speaking community around the world, whereas francophone literature is all French-language texts produced by authors originating from francophone countries. This study discusses the exploration of the literary text of the francophones in teaching French as a foreign language in Indonesian context. The method used is the descriptive qualitative literature review approach. Data in the form of words, phrases, and sentences in French were collected from data sources, which consisted of French language teaching manuals and francophones novels. Data translated directly by researchers and validated by native French speakers. The data are then classified, interpreted, and reviewed according to the context. The results of this study indicate that: through reflection in a pedagogical framework, it can be agreed that the literary text of the francophones, like other literary texts from around the world, is fertile ground for building learners' intercultural competence. From the discussion, it is also known that the text of the francophones has been used in FLE learning in Indonesia although it is not yet optimal, because it is limited by the linguistic competence of the learner and has only been given to classes from middle to the upper level (between levels B1-B2). This study also proves that the literary text of the francophones can be attributed as a potential learning medium to be explored in the language class, but it requires certain competencies from the teacher, adequate preparation, and thorough execution

Hybridité, animalité et métissage : la littérature francophone contemporaine entre parasitisme et devenir-autre

Postcolonial Francophone literature, as it has evolved since the independence movements in the French colonies (mainly in Africa and in the Caribbean islands), has known two major moments in the 20th century, where it distanced itself from metropolitan French Literature: in the forties, fifties and sixties, with the movement of the « négritude » and more recently, in the nineties, with the rise of "créolité"- which will lead to the actual current of "Littérature-monde" (2005), and corresponds to the era that will be investigated here. It would be naïve to think that this desire for literary independence could have been fulfilled entirely, while expressed in the language of the "oppressor". In spite of its claims to the contrary, this postcolonial francophone literature remains to this day haunted by its French model. To a certain degree, it is still very much dependent as can be seen from its fixation with Paris as the only "centre" of culture and the frequency of themes such as social parasitism and hospitality. But of course, Francophone literature cannot be reduced to such a simplistic model. Its relationship to French Literature can't be reduced to a purely mimetic one. In spite of (or maybe thanks to) its heavy borrowing from the French canon, it has succeeded in creating a new space of reciprocal exchanges and constant metamorphosis. It is this space that H. Bhabha called "third space", defined by hybridity and "métissage" - a paradoxical way of coping with the double inheritance of the same and the other. In opposition to the static behaviour in which the parasite engages when imitating, one has to conceive, according to G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, a heterogeneous relationship characterized by movement and fluctuation: a "becoming" rather than a "being". It is this notion of constantly changing identities that we will analyze in reaction to parasitism, which remains based on imitation: a need for metamorphosis best expressed in "animalisation" and the loss of identity it produces. In order to test this hypothesis, we will analyze a series of works of fiction where this theme of animalisation is most visible (produced over the past 15 years in Postcolonial Francophone literature). Some of the novels in our corpus are the following: Mémoires d'un porc-épic, by Mabanckou (from Congo); Moi, l'interdite, by Ananda Devi (from Mauritius), Temps de chien by P. Nganang (from Cameroun) and Un Chien mort après lui by Jean Rolin (France). We hope that the relative homogeneity of our findings will allow us to formulate new insights in the way Francophone literature deals with those ever returning questions of identity and otherness

Enseigner le français en contexte universitaire à des étudiants non francophones en mobilité : quelle place pour les littératures francophones ?

The role of literature in language teaching has been re-assessed ; it has been documented in numerous work, many of them paying a special attention to francophone literature, which seems to be able to function as a bridge between languages and cultures. This paper will analyze individual interviews conducted with teachers  working in French-language university centers. How do they define this corpus (including, or not, french «hexagonal» literature ?)  Which place and functions do they assign to theses litteratures in their teaching practices 

What is Québécois Literature?

The question ‘What is Québécois literature?’ may seem innocent and answerable, yet Rosemary Chapman's compelling study shows that to answer it is to chart the cultural history of French Canada, to put francophone writing in Canada in postcolonial context and to ask whether literary history, with its focus on the nation, is in fact obsolete. This remarkable book will be compulsory reading for scholars well-versed in francophone postcolonial studies and will also act as an ideal introduction for Anglophone scholars of Canadian literature